Evaluation of the Maryland Next Gen Test Bank Project: Implications and Recommendations.

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the development and impact of a project to create a statewide test bank of Next Generation NCLEX®-style items.

Backround: Using a train-the-trainer model, champions created an open access resource of Next Generation NCLEX-style items to use to teach clinical judgment and then trained peers on item writing and test bank use.

Method: Stufflebeam's CIPP (context, inputs, process, and products) model provided the framework for the evaluation.

Retaining the Best: Recognizing What Meaningful Recognition Is to Nurses as a Strategy for Nurse Leaders.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify what meaningful recognition is to nurses in a postpandemic healthcare landscape.

Background: The COVID pandemic has exacerbated the critical need to retain our nursing workforce. Meaningful recognition as a component of a healthy work environment can be a strategy to retain nurses.

Maryland Action Coalition: Academic Progression Takes Several Pathways.

Aim: The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the Maryland Action Coalition academic progression activities.

Background: Maryland is predicted to be one of four states that will experience a shortage of 10,000 or more registered nurses in 2025. The Maryland Action Coalition has committed to the Institute of Medicine's Future of Nursing recommendation that 80 percent of nurses be educated at the baccalaureate (or higher) level.

Survey of advanced practice student clinical preceptors.

Most nursing schools use preceptors to provide critical elements of practice, instruction, and supervision. It is important to understand the factors influencing preceptors to volunteer their time and expertise. The purpose of this survey of advanced practice student clinical preceptors was twofold: to determine the barriers to and motivators for providing clinical mentoring and evaluation, and to determine the need for educational preparation to facilitate their roles as clinical preceptors.

Assessing an interdisciplinary health care model: the Governor's Wellmobile Program.

This article assesses the applicability of Bronstein's (2003) generic model of interdisciplinary collaboration in the context of a newly created collaboration providing community-based health care services, the Governor's Wellmobile Program. An analysis of the program's quarterly reports and interviews with faculty and students involved in the collaboration offers an assessment of the model and implications for interdisciplinary social work practice in community health care delivery.

Brain atrophy and white matter hyperintensity change in older adults and relationship to blood pressure. Brain atrophy, WMH change and blood pressure.

Hypertension is a major risk factor for stroke and dementia and is associated with white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and reduced brain volumes. We measured the increase in WMH volume, and rate of cerebral atrophy over two years, in hypertensive subjects participating in the Study on COgnition and Prognosis in the Elderly (SCOPE), receiving candesartan or placebo, and normotensive controls. We recruited 163 subjects who had MRI (FLAIR and volumetric T1) at 2 and 4 years after baseline assessment.

Cognitive associations of subcortical white matter lesions in older people.

Hyperintense lesions (HL), as visualized on T2-weighted or FLAIR MRI, are a common finding in older people, but their clinical significance and influence on cognitive function remain to be clarified. We investigated the relationship between HL in deep white and gray matter structures and cognition in older subjects. We recruited 154 nondemented (Mini-Mental State Examination > 24) subjects (79 males) over the age of 70 from primary care (103 subjects with mild hypertension and 51 normotensive subjects).